written by our collaborators at the Maker Lab
by Jan Bawol ’23
For this week’s Maker Monday, we’re spotlighting Amazon Lab126’s Vice President of Engineering, Mr. Lindo St. Angel!
Having experience with Amazon’s workflow and design principles, Mr. St. Angel has given our members several presentations and QnA’s over the last semester. Most notably, we learned about the captivating backstories behind Astro and the Fire Phone.
For example, here is one of the questions we asked Mr. St. Angel:
Q: How does Lab126 collaborate with other teams at Amazon to ensure seamless and integrated product development?
A: Amazon uses a mechanism called Product Development Process (PDP) to develop hardware and these programs are referred to as New Product Introduction (NPI). This mechanism synchronizes many different technical and business functions to ensure our products are defined, designed, mass manufactured and marketed to meet exacting quality and business standards. The engineering functions governed by PDP include industrial design, user experience, electrical, mechanical, firmware, software, architecture, simulation, manufacturing, reliability, packaging and quality. Technical Program Managers and Product Managers collaborate with the engineering teams to ensure the product is defined working backwards from customer needs per our Press Release / Frequently Asked Questions (PRFAQ) mechanism.
Stay tuned to WGOTW and the @bcpmakerlab on Instagram to learn about future events & collaborations!